1. Field of the Invention
This application relates to new methods of construction and maintenance of golf courses. More particularly, it concerns improved methods for the construction of sand traps, tees and putting greens and the maintenance of sand traps on golf courses.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Sand traps are placed in selected positions around golf courses, typically adjacent the putting greens, to serve as hazards to the golfers playing the course. The sand used in these traps is of special quality and grain size. Hence, typically it must be obtained from a sand mine located some distance from the golf course site and hauled by truck or rail plus truck to the site where it is off-loaded at some location adjacent the golf course that is accessible from a roadway leading thereto.
In the construction of a golf course, the placement of the sand in the traps occurs as one of the final steps in the operation. Thus, all land grading and contouring have been fully completed by the time the sand is to be loaded into the traps. This prohibits the use of tracks, tractors and like heavy moving equipment to transport sand from the off-load location to the sand trap location.
The problem of transporting trap sand from an off-load location to a sand trap location is not limited to construction of golf courses. Thus, periodically, e.g., at three to five year intervals, the sand in the traps must be removed and be replenished with new sand.
Up to the time of the present invention, the conventional procedure for transport of trap sand from an off-load location to a sand trap location has been by wheelbarrow. Thus, wood boards are laid on the ground forming a path from the off-load location to the sand trap location and laborers with wheelbarrows move the sand from the off-load location to the sand trap location, one barrow at a time. As a result, a four to six man crew working full days may take up to five days to supply the sand required to a single sand trap. Further, in the prior used method, once the sand has been wheelbarrowed to the trap, much additional labor is required to rake and properly spread it on the bed of the sand trap. This labor intensive method of operation has persisted for a many years as golf courses have been constructed and maintained.
The present invention improves on the method of sanding traps on golf courses whereby it is possible to sand an average trap in less than a day with a crew of three.
Construction of tees and putting greens on golf courses is another area that, up until the present invention, has been an intensive hand labor operation. Thus, acceptable tees and putting greens require a special type of foundation with well structured water drainage qualities. Until the present invention, the conventional method of creating a putting green has been to form an outlined contour of it in the existing terra firma, sometimes with power equipment, but more often by hand shoveling and raking, at a depth several feet below the intended ultimate grass surface of the putting green. Trenches are then dug in the resulting surface in a predetermined pattern to receive drainage pipe, typically by manual shoveling because mechanical trenchers leave an adjacent pile of earth which must be evenly spread about the contoured area before the next phase of construction is undertaken.
In such next phase, drainage pipe is laid in the trenches and the trench is filled to a contour level by hand shovelling of fill dirt. Then, in a further phase, gravel of prescribed size is spread over the contoured area to a predetermined depth to form a drainage substrate. Conventionally, this has been accomplished using wheelbarrows and hand labor with resulting cost and time problems. The present invention provides new methods of creating golf course putting greens that eliminate the onerous labor and cost problems that have been tolerated for decades by golf course construction contractors because they did not know and have not had available methods that overcome the cost and labor problems that have been so long apparent to them.
The invention involves the pneumatic transport of sand and gravel from an off-load location to a use location. The pneumatic transport of sand and gravel from one location to another, most often as an aqueous slurry, but sometimes per se, has been known for sometime and equipment for doing this is known and is commercially available, e.g., see U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,161,442 and 4,025,122, the disclosures of which regarding equipment construction are incorporated herein by reference. The present invention utilizes this and equivalent available equipment in a manner not previously apparent to those skilled in the art for carrying out the applicants' new improvements for the construction and maintenance of golf courses.